computoman

You can get add on boards to make your Arduino more functional. Seeed (available at Radio Shack and other fine companies) makes several boards that are price competive.)   I bought the Seeed ethernet add-on board for half the price of the Arduino option, but it was a bit trimed down such as no card slot. The board also works with the Osepp Arduino clones. That is what we used for this project.   I wanted a way to have a temporary web server up when I needed to bring the regular web server down.  The Arduino was the perfect choice. I just took the web server example from the Arduino IDE and commented out the code that was not needed (but could be reused later) and added the code that was needed i.e. ...           client.println("<center>");           client.println("<h1>Your server name<h1>");         ...

One of the hottest microcontrollers now is the Arduino.  It was originally developed in Italy. You can get them at major electronic outlets such as Radio Shack, Fry's (known as Osepp), and many other places. Great for controlling all sorts of things or just even for learning electronics. I had some instructions for installing the software for the Arduino, but when I finally tried to upload compiled code, there was no communication. Arduino defaults to com1 and if you are using Ubuntu, the usb port if should be ttyUSB0 instead. There are a few other gotchas, but I have it working and it is neat. The software comes with a lot of examples including one for a simple blinking light that does not require any extra parts to get working to start off. If you plan to really use the Arduino, I really recommend getting the "Arduino cookbook". I think a lot of the robotics books are now spending time talking about the Arduino. Great gift for an aspiring techie. http://www.instructable...